If Reaganism as a political program is dead, then politically active religious conservatives must think about what new political coalition they might join with a view to defending their core principles and otherwise promoting the common good. Continue Reading »
The Republicans are reliving the Democratic Party's nightmares. The cancelled Donald Trump event of Friday March 11 seemed to presage 1968-style disruptions at political events, but 1968 might not be the right analogy. As the party of tired myth and exhausted agenda, the Republicans of 2016 most . . . . Continue Reading »
Social media tend to magnify the expansive self, encouraging participants to stake out a virtual identity within the ethereal territory of the world wide web: “This is who I am, like it or not!” “My political beliefs are part of my identity; to call them into question is to call my very identity into question.” Continue Reading »
We’re in a clarifying moment. Since Super Tuesday and Trump’s successes in a number of states, the Republican Party establishment is mounting an all-out effort to discredit him and to prevent him from becoming the GOP nominee. If these efforts succeed, something like the standard politics of the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Republican establishment has swung into DEFCON I, maximum force alert. Last month I contributed to a widely publicized symposium at National Review. Our hope was to stop his rise. The liberal establishment is, if anything, even more agitated. Trump transgresses the rules of political engagement, to say nothing of political correctness. A stream-of-consciousness, reality TV show insult machine leads the race for the Republican Party nomination. How did we come to this point?
Last week I contributed to the National Review symposium, “Conservatives Against Trump.” I was happy to do so. Donald Trump manifests the post-political mentality of our time, encouraging the idea that our problems boil down to stupid, weak, corrupt people being in charge, and that all we need . . . . Continue Reading »
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has been both praised and criticized for her condemnation of the “angriest voices” in our politics. Most observers recognized that Haley was referring to Donald Trump, and it was noteworthy that the most notable section of her response to Obama's state of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Donald Trump's fiercest critics have hoped that his outlandish statements will eventually undo him. Their mistake is that Trump is a creation of America's (and the Republican Party's) political elites. The Trump phenomenon exists because Republican elites scorned large segments of their own . . . . Continue Reading »